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In essence, a loincloth is lower body underwear made of cloth or hides. Sometimes it's just a flap over the crotch and rear, and sometimes it's woven like actual briefs.

Often some cultures, especially stereotypically primitive ones, have this as the only form of clothing. But one of the most prominent appearances in fiction is the fantasy Barbarian Heroes, even though they come from the north, where it's really cold. Sure they wear these made of fur, and perhaps they dress better when actually in their northern homelands, but otherwise this is a form of Impossibly Cool Clothes. Is frequently used as a male instance of Stripperific outfits.

May occasionally be justified, if the barbarian from the Grim Up North actually complains about the sweltering heat of the southern lands he's exploring, and refuses to wear more for this reason.

Examples:

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Advertising

Both the guy and girl in this Coty Wild Musk commercial are wearing loincloths.

Anime & Manga

Brought up to a truly frightening extent in Adekan. The manga is set in a very strange 1900's esque era of Japan, and loincloths are the equivalent of men's underwear. Shiro doesn't like to wear loincloths, and Kojiro doesn't like that Shiro won't wear it. This leads to much awkwardness as Kojiro occasionally tries to force Shiro into loincloths, models his own loincloth and shows off different forms of loincloth with imaginary models. And he doesn't see anything wrong with this at all.

Ouran High School Host Club's Suou Tamaki has to wear a loincloth in the manga after losing a bet to Kyouya. He's a little upset about it at first, but then easily forgets about it after Haruhi gives him a super bouncy ball to play with (so he would stop being a pain).

Ruin Explorers: Apparently, Fam feels she doesn't need to wear pants (or shoes, for that matter) since she has fur. And no one seems to care that she runs around in nothing but a thong and a loincloth - likely because she's underagednote she's 14.

B'wana Beast in DC somewhat subverts this: he wears a loincloth over a pair of animal skin shorts. He may be the only example of a hero wearing their Underwear of Power on the outside . . . of their Underwear of Power. His succesor, Freedom Beast, tried to live down the more ridiculous aspects of his predecessor, including this one.

Films — Animation

Heavy Metal: Den in his segment fashions one out of a flag upon arriving naked on a new world. Counts as Hypocritical Humor, since in the original comics that's exactly what he did.

Den: There was no way I was gonna walk around this place with my dork hanging out!

Moana: Deuteragonist Maui wears nothing more than a leaf loincloth and animal-tooth necklace because his whole body is covered in Animated Tattoos which need to be exposed as they add depth and commentary to the ongoing story.

Films — Live-Action

Spartacus. In the opening fight that triggers the revolt, the upper-class Roman women for whom the spectacle has been put on order that both gladiators fight in loin cloths.

Jack from Legend (1985) — he starts the movie as a solitary woods-dweller wearing little but a loin cloth. After he becomes officially The Chosen One, however, he gets a sword, shield, and suit of armor... which covers his chest and arms, but does nothing to obscure his loinclothed lower body. It's a wonder Darkness never just aimeda little bit lower...

Tarzan is usually seen this way in film adaptations. In the second Tarzan film of the Johnny Weissmuller series, Tarzan and His Mate, Jane (Maureen O'Sullivan) also wears a loin cloth around her nether regions. This proved too naughty when The Hays Code crackdown came in 1934, so later Tarzan films had O'Sullivan wearing a one-piece.

Literature

Most visual adaptations of Conan the Barbarian. Howard's original short stories (and most Conan stories by later authors) are better about dressing Conan in clothing appropriate to his current situation (e.g., in chain armour as a mercenary captain or professional soldier; in leather armour as a brigand leader; shirtless but in breeches as a thief; loincloth when a slave or tropical pirate). He does have a way of getting knocked out, stripped, and imprisoned, though...

In Star Wars: The Krytos Trap, Proud Warrior Race Twi'leks are said to wear an outfit that consists of a loincloth, wrapped leggings to the knee, Fingerless Gloves, and a decorative/functional bandoleer, all under a cloak. Wedge Antilles, visiting to try and coax them into selling the New Republic some medicine, puts on a modified version that includes an emerald green loincloth over his trousers. He wants his garb to signal that he's a warrior and not a merchant, but he's also not a Proud Warrior Race Twi'lek.

In M. R. Harrington's The Indians of New Jersey: Dickon Among the Lenapes, all the men wear one. At one point, the villain, Toad Face, tries to force the hero, In the Forest, to wear a woman's skirt instead. It does not end well.

This is probably what Grignr of The Eye of Argon was supposed to be wearing, but the word that actually ended up being used was "g-string". How it had folds is anyone's guess.

Live-Action TV

In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Rom and his fiancée look at wedding dresses, and one is nothing but a loincloth. His Ferengi nature feels that this is a good compromise, but it's rejected.

The PCs in Dragon Age: Origins are wearing this under their clothes, if you decide to let them wear clothes. They don't take them off during the sex scenes, however. There's one especially erotic-looking scene where Alistair and The Warden get thrown into a dungeon cell wearing nothing but their underwear. The heavy Chiaroscuro from the torchlight in the dungeon makes it rather difficult to forget everyone's naked.

Diablo III: Among the PC classes, the Witch Doctor's attire generally includes a loincloth, and the Barbarian's starting outfit is little else. Many NPCs wear loincloths as well (especially the demons).

Krystal in Star Fox Adventures wears a loincloth and bikini top, in contrast to her catsuit in the later games.

SoulCalibur: Seung-Mina wore one as part of her default costume in the first three games in the series. She finally averts the trope in SC IV, in favor of more conservative attire.

World of Warcraft has several Cloth and Leather legs armors that are simply speedo-style loincloths on both males and females. Unfortunately, Mail and Plate don't have such options for males (females get Chainmail Bikini versions of several of them), though Mail does have some short-shorts for the guys.

The Immersive Armors mod for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim adds a whole lot of new armors. One of them, the "Barbarian Hero" set, is basically Conan the Barbarian's iconic outfit if worn by a male character (fur loin cloth, fur boots, bracers, and a leather circlet; the female variant has a skimpy leather apron with sideboobs instead of the loincloth). A similar outfit can be found in the Conan Hyborian Age mod.

Also Thaco, who's wearing a loincloth until the younger goblins insist he tries out some halfling clothes, because of his tendency to flash them in the wind or when doing a hand-stand.

Gorgado in Fite! wears one. Guz also wears one under his armor, and spends a while in nothing but it after he loses said armor.

In one arc of Schlock Mercenary some of the Toughs ended up stranded in the middle of the wilderness of a remote planet naked, one of the first things they did after landing was skin a dead animal to make buttflaps.

In Avatar: The Last Airbender, this seems to be the male equivalent to underwear; in particular, Aang and Sokka usually wear just this while swimming (though Zuko seems to have something closer to an actual bathing suit). Members of the Foggy Swamp Tribe have them as standard attire, though.

It should be noted that loincloth is not a pair of flaps connected by a string, as sometimes presented in illustrations, but a single piece of cloth or leather wrapped between legs and tied on the waist, leaving two flaps hanging.

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